7-5-2018 Utah Olympic Park

Alf Engen (L) and Joe Quinney (R)

There is quite a lot more to tell you about this place.  Two people are honored here, Alf Engen and Joe Quinney.  Alf Engen was born in Norway in 1909.  He was primarily a ski jumper but mastered alpine skiing and became focused on spreading the sport in the USA.  He was a hall of famer and was appointed “Athlete of the 20th Century” and is known as “The Father of American Powder Skiing Technique.”  Joe Quinney was born in 1892 in Utah and was a lawyer (We’ll let him skate on that.), businessman and pioneer in the ski industry.  His promotion of skiing spanned 5 decades and he is responsible for the establishment of the Alta ski area as well as others.  As a hall of famer he is also known as “The Father of Utah Skiing.”  The Alf Engen Ski Museum and the Joe Quinney Sports Center are a part of Utah Olympic Park.

As an aside, Mitt Romney deserves honorable mention.  The construction of Olympic Park began 11 years before Park City won the bid to host the winter games.  It is not so uncommon for the money to come from public funding but Utah refused to build the facility on the backs of the taxpayers.  Funding began to dwindle and the project was slated to be abandoned when Romney stepped up.  As a private businessman, he took over the failing enterprise and before long the project was flush with funds and back in business.  By the way, Utah has put in a bid to host the 2030 games.  Yay, count me in!

At the top of the K120 ramp. The skis fit
into the white tracks.

On our first day at the park, we decided to take the guided bus tour.  It took us up the mountains to our first stop, the launch point of the long jumps.  There are 3 ramps, the K120, K90 and K64.  The “K” is a German word for “construction point,” “konstruktionspunkt,” also known as the “critical point,” “kritisch.”    The number is for the meters.  We get conflicting information on 120 meters of what, absolute height, length of the run or the hippopotamus to the landing point or what.  Anyway, 120 is about one and a third football fields.  And human beings launch down this thing of their own free will!  The athletes’ skis fit into the tracks (also used in the off-season), but because the tracks are not iced in the Summer, they are slower.  For this purpose, some long jumpers cut holes or slots in the skis to reduce drag.  The tracks at this park are the highest in the world, sea level-wise, so the Winter conditions must be consistently excellent.  Little wonder athletes from around the world are attracted to Utah to train.

Lindy in the summer 4-man bobsled

The bus stopped next at the top of the skeleton, luge and bobsled trough.  (Off-season bobsleds have wheels on the bottom.) The 4-man bobsled will move at a speedy 80 mph.  The skeleton, the sled that the athlete lays on stomach-down and head first, his chin often only ½ inch off the track , travels at 75 mph.  (I love adrenaline rush but I do not have a death wish.)  The luge is ridden feet first lying on the back and is the fastest of the three, reaching speeds of roughly 90 mph.  The trough has two red marks.  They must pass the first red mark within some number of seconds and by 60 seconds, all 4 bobsledders must be in the vehicle.  I am not sure what the red marks mean for the luge and the skeleton, if anything.

Two-man bobsled

Bobsled track

The Alf Engen Museum features pictures and names of the Ski Hall of Fame inductees and ski garb dating back to the 1970s.  There are also two simulators.  We rode the bobsled and the downhill ski ride.  The downhill athlete in the animation skied the trees and the powder in the trees and unfortunately ate a tree toward the end of his run.  That was a little shocking!  After the simulator, we tried the long jump.  You stand on a gimbled platform and the screen in front of you shows the route down the slope and then gets you airborne.  Rob managed to actually stick one of his landings while I, on the other hand, crashed and burned every time.  “Oh well… just give me an aisle seat and a gin and tonic, please,” as I am known to say.

The arrow points to our rv park as viewed from
the top of the K120 ski jump